She catches up and lowers her voice. “I know you canceled the search. I was part of the first party heading out. They say something’s going on in the woods. Is it…?” Her mouth works, as if she can’t form the words. Then she swallows and says, quietly, “Is something wrong?”
I hate moments like this. I can’t tell her the truth, but I can’t lie either. I’m forced to retreat into “I can’t comment,” and as gently as I say it, her face still contorts with grief. She knows what that means, but she only backs up, stumbling a little.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll wait.”
“We’ll call a meeting as soon as we can.”
She keeps nodding as she turns and then hurries straight for her apartment.
“Can we have someone pop by the general store?” I ask Phil. “Tell them Gloria won’t be back to work. I know we already stole Petra today…”
“I can’t imagine people are doing much shopping,” he says. “Unless they’re looking for souvenirs.”
I give a little laugh at that. “Yeah, we could probably make a killing on Rockton T-shirts right now. Maybe you should invest in snow globes.”
“I’ll get on that. I’ll also speak to the general store.”
He ushers me into his chalet. It takes a few moments for him to get Tamara on the line. Once he does, he tells her that he has a couple of errands to run, but he’ll be back in twenty minutes, should we need him. Tamara assures him we will not.
“The council is very concerned about this latest murder,” Tamara says, after giving Phil a moment to leave.
I don’t think I’m imagining the emphasis she puts on latest, as if we’re living in Murder Central. Which, all things considered, we might be. But that would be the fault of the people who keep sending us the damn killers.
“I’m also very concerned,” I say. “Particularly about the accusation made on that sign.”
“Irrelevant.”
“How do you figure that?” I ask.
She pauses. Randomly snapping unnecessary had shut me up the last time, and she expected more of the same.
When she recovers, she says, “This sounds like victim blaming, Detective.”
I have to bite back a laugh at that. I also need to award her a point. She may barely know me, but she’s hit a weak spot there. I’m that kind of cop, the kind who’s very careful not to blame victims, especially women.
“Yeah, no,” I say. “That would only apply if I were suggesting I’d treat Jolene’s case differently if I discovered she was a killer. I believe my record there speaks for itself. You guys keep sending us criminals, and I keep treating them like normal citizens until they fuck up. So let’s drop the bullshit where you pretend the council only sends us white-collar criminals, okay? We only played that game to avoid giving you ammunition against us.”
Silence. Then, “I realize you’re under a lot of stress, Detective Butler—”
“Fine, let’s play that game instead. You’ve never knowingly let in violent criminals. They just get past your background checks. I’m asking about Jolene for a reason. Because her murder and that sign take us right back where we were two days ago. Will’s case seemed to be a one-off. Is it? Or are others in danger? The answer to my question doesn’t affect how well I investigate. It does affect what I’m investigating, though.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Jolene’s murderer left a sign on her body accusing her of being a killer. If she did kill someone down south, even accidentally, then her murderer knew that. Others could be in danger. It also provides me a place to start looking—who might have this information or who might she have told? On the other hand, it could be a red herring. Maybe her killer stuck that sign on her to send us in the wrong direction. With the limited time we have available, we can’t afford to run down the wrong path.”
She’s quiet, and I make the mistake of thinking she’s considering my words. That she might actually give me a tidbit, if only telling me that they’ll look into Jolene’s story and let us know if they find any murders in her background.
“I think we are misunderstanding one another,” she says finally. “When I say the council is concerned, I don’t mean they are concerned you may not catch Jolene’s killer. They are concerned about the timing.”
I hesitate. “Because with the exodus we may not catch her killer before they leave?”
“No, Detective Butler. I mean the timing of her death. It’s convenient, don’t you think?”
I blink, and my mouth opens, then shuts, my brain whirring madly. There’s a trap here. I sense it, and I suddenly wish I were not alone on this side of the radio. I need someone to help me see the trap before I fall in and pull us all down with me. I need Dalton. I’d settle for Phil. But I don’t have them, and that is when rage begins to twist in my stomach.
Tamara insisted on me coming without Dalton. Without Phil. Yes, this is about a criminal case, and I am the town detective, but why separate me from my ranking superiors?
Because I’m the weak link. I’d like to say it has nothing to do with me being a woman, but I suspect that would be naive. That’s how it goes, isn’t it? A situation arises where our gut tells us a man wouldn’t be treated the same way, and yet there is that voice in our heads, from all the times we’ve cautiously brought up the possibility of sexism and been told we’re overreacting, imagining things, playing the feminism card. Same goes for being a person of color. We’re told it has nothing to do with the shade of our skin.
That little voice means I won’t say for certain that the council wouldn’t pull this shit on a man, but I suspect it. Strongly suspect it. I have been the conciliatory feminine balance to Dalton’s bulldozer masculine approach. That made me the one the council preferred speaking to, which suited Dalton fine, but did it also make them see me as weak? Typically feminine traits being labeled lesser?
Whatever the reason, I am the fall guy here. A trap has been laid, and without the men to protect me, I am expected to stumble into it.
How is the timing of Jolene’s death “convenient”? It takes me a moment to get there. I’m focused on the fact that it’d been damned inconvenient for Jolene. I may not have liked her, but she did not deserve that. And yes, there’s the uncomfortable admission that the timing is inconvenient because we have other things to do and does it even matter who killed her? If no one else is in danger—and we don’t expect her killer to suffer any consequences—does it matter?
But that’s not what Tamara means, and I need to unwrap my brain from those sticky thoughts and reach farther. Get into their mindset.
Shit.
Fucking hell, no.
I need Dalton here, to voice all the explosive profanity that erupts when my brain finally makes the connection.
My mouth opens. I shut it fast, because I realize how it will look if I blurt my thoughts here. How they can willfully misinterpret them.
The council is saying that the timing of Jolene’s death seems suspicious because it happened after they announced we were closing down. We’d just solved the Conrad situation, and suddenly, with this murder, we’ve ripped the lid off the closed-case file and shouted, “It’s not over!”